Shirley Style

 I try to do things efficiently, I really do. As old as I am, it seems that I need more practice in several areas.

THIS IS HOW I MAKE SMOOTHIES

I've made smoothies for years. Yesterday I waited for a few seconds, as is my habit, to make sure the lid wouldn't pop off at the blender's high speed, since I tend to put in lots of yummy ingredients. (This time an extra addition was grapes, which made those little bits of purple you see in the spinach/pineapple/banana/cucumber/parsley/carrot/celery mixture.) Well, after I left the kitchen for a task in another room, I returned to find my smoothie half spilled onto the counter.

I'd like to say it won't ever happen again, but this is Shirley we're talking about.

THIS IS HOW I SEW

 I've been sewing since I got a miniature sewing machine as a 10-year-old. The mittens I made (out of cotton material, mind you) didn't fit, because I traced around my hand without knowing I had to cut bigger than that for a seam allowance.

If you've never sewed, you may not know about thread, or that the little tail of thread hanging from the right side of the spool is NOT supposed to be there, and spells potential disaster. 

Most thread I've used comes wound on a spool, then the end is pulled through a tight cut in the edge of said plastic spool and glued down by a sticky circle with manufacturer's information stamped on it.

I've managed to get the end of the thread free on many occasions, but last week, it wouldn't come loose, so I finally cut the edge of the spool with scissors to release the thread end, but managed to cut through two strings of thread instead of just releasing the one I was after. (There was ANOTHER tail initially, making three potential candidates for threading through my needle, but it seems to have been subdued by my refusal to throw the spool away.)

Extra ends, dear reader, means that the threads can twist around each other and TANGLE. 

I'm sewing anyway, since I hate to waste all that lovely thread. I'm just waiting for it to work its way to the other thread end, interested to see what might happen then.

Life's an adventure.

THIS IS HOW I DO LAUNDRY

I've done laundry for decades, yet when I washed a load of whites, and threw in a faded old jeans jacket that had been washed many times before,  the result was half blue, half white clothes.

For one thing, how could the old, nearly white jeans jacket have enough dye left to turn clothes so blue?

For the second thing, how come only the silky things turned blue, and the cotton-y things stayed WHITE?

It's a mystery to me.

Do your tasks behave when you do them? 

In other words, is your life under complete, useful control?

Cow Pie Pancakes

As I was sitting at the table eating raw vegetables, my stomach complained that those green and leafy things surely weren't the only thing I was going to give it, were they? My stomach added that there was some pancake mix in the kitchen, and pancakes were so gooood. Then my stomach teamed up with my mouth and I heard myself ask my 14-year-old son, "Will you please cook me some pancakes?"
"Sure," he said, and walked into the kitchen. That's when I should have been suspicious. He protesteth not enough.
He came back in the dining room stirring a bowl of pancake mix with a fork. Then, looking in the bowl, he said, "Ew, what is that? Oh, well, I just stirred it in. I'm sure it's fine." Then he went back in the kitchen and I soon smelled the delicious aroma of browning pancakes. A minute later, he brought me a plate with his hand cupped around the edge. "Now, don't panic," he said. "This is supposed to be Mickey Mouse, but his brains squished out when I turned him over." Well, I could eat a mutated Mickey Mouse, and I did, and my stomach cheered.
Then my son brought me a glass of milk, only it was strange because there was a blob of bright red color spreading through the white. "Sorry, but this is the only milk we had," he explained. "George the Farmer was milking the cow when the cow stepped on his hand. George's finger popped off and flew into the milk bucket. Now his finger is in your glass, so when you drink it, leave a little on the bottom to preserve the finger so we can take it to the hospital when you're through and sew it back onto poor George."
After hearing that story, I couldn't make myself drink the milk, even though somewhere in my heart I hoped it was just red food coloring.
Then Brian brought out another plate with his hand cupped around the edge. "I made a culinary masterpiece," he announced solemnly. "I hope you enjoy it." Then he set the plate down with a flourish and announced, "Cow pie pancakes." Four pancakes of varying diameters stared up at me from the plate. They were stacked with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top, and by gum, it did look like a cow patty that some bovine had casually dropped in the corral. But I ate it anyway. After all, I couldn't let a masterpiece go to waste.

Coupon Togetherness

by Shirley Bahlmann
The printed word is magic. You can learn about anything in the world if you can read. My always hungry 14-year-old proved that point yesterday when he pulled a sheet of fast food coupons out of the trash, where his eat-at-home-loving dad had tossed them.
"Hey, Mom, let's go get some cinna-blobs," he said, pointed to a picture of a cinnamon roll that had been chopped to bits and stacked in a small plastic tray.
I think fast food is way over priced, but I went ahead and read the coupon. Well, whaddya know, buy one, get one free. I had errands to run, so I was fine with getting a snack if my 17-year-old would drive. He was happy to do so, and away we went.
When we got back home, all was well until my 8-year-old returned from playing at a friend's house and found the evidence: little boxes with smears of frosting in the corners.
"Hey," he asked, "where did these come from?"
I was cornered. Furtively, I admitted, "I bought them."
"I want some."
So I sent him on a clandestine mission on his bike with a pocketful of pennies and another coupon. His mission failed when he came home and reported that they were all out of cinna-blobs. "We can try again tomorrow," I told him to his frowny face.
So as soon as he got up this morning, he began chanting, "Go get food, go get food, go get food." Sleep had done nothing to fog his memory. I'd said we'd try again, so I slid my bare feet into a pair of flip flops and drove the few blocks to the fast food store, blinking at the girl through the little glass window. "Two cinna-blobs, please."
When we reached home, my 8-year-old hurried inside to share his bounty with his big brothers, regardless of the fact that they'd inhaled everything they'd gotten the day before.
Who would have guessed that coupons would bring our family closer together? Besides that, I didn't have to cook breakfast. It was a good morning after all.